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Montana Heavy Cruiser
Not to be confused with the Imperial Naginata Cruiser. The Second World War is remembered by many Allied sailors as the last great hurrah for conventional warfare at sea. The Soviet Union had their subs, but none could compare with the sheer range and destructive power of the Allied heavy cruiser. The designation heavy cruiser was always something of a misnomer - although most nations had quickly disregarded the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty, the United States Congress was leery of approving funding for a new class of battleship even as the United States Navy decided that it needed a new class of warship suitable for long-range destruction of Soviet surface units (a predicted need that failed to materialize) and direct naval support of land-based operations. The Navy's response was a ship only marginally smaller than the existing Florida class battleships, and was designed around an armament of four sixteen-inch cannons. Naming it the Montana class, the Navy presented it to Congress as a "heavy cruiser", correctly figuring that Congress didn't know that only battleships were traditionally named after American states. The project was approved, and only a short time later, the Montana class warships were in Europe, pounding the Soviets with a might previously unseen among the Allies. The Montana served with great distinction during the war as the hardest-hitting artillery piece the Allies had to offer. Although vulnerable to air attacks and submarines, that's what destroyers were for, and the restriction of the Montana to naval and coastal operations proved to be only a minor restriction, given the range of its sixteen-inch cannons. Unfortunately, these restrictions were enough to provoke controversy among the European Allies, who were eager to discuss the idea of mobile, floating air bases as a means of fire support rather than naval gunfire, citing the flexibility and range of modern aircraft. Defenders of the Montana cited its twelve inches of armour and the sheer demoralizing effect of cruiser bombardments, but the discussion ultimately won out in favor of carriers, and the Montana was formally retired from active duty with the Allies. One diehard defender of the Montana, however, was also quite wily. Admiral Matthew Horner, with great support from the Navy and even the Marine Corps, successfully persuaded Congress to keep the surviving Montana class cruisers and transfer them to the United States Coast Guard instead of simply retiring them. The mothball fleet was enormous already, and with the enormous magazines of the Montana stripped out, they could be used for all manner of purposes, including use as floating hospitals, transporting supplies in an exceedingly well-defended vessel, and the like. Of course, Horner never had any intention of actually following through, but Congress didn't need to know that. During the Third World War, there was much talk of bringing the Montana back, with the most common rationale being "We want guns, not sissy drones or fancy-shmancy cryo beams! GUNS!!!", according to Allied records. This talk came to naught, but it did return the idea of a heavy naval gun platform to the minds of many American naval officers, and a program was even launched to nullify the cruisers' weaknesses by fitting the ships with "beehive shells" and a new fire control system stolen from the Empire of the Rising Sun's transforming craft to allow the cruisers to rain destruction on both surface and air targets. Yet the venerable warships remained out of sight, and for the Allies, out of mind... ...And when the Allies began to impose themselves on the United States following the war, the Europeans failed to think about reigning in, or indeed exercising any control over, the Coast Guard, the oft-forgotten fifth branch of the American military. When Admiral Horner, by this point retired, heard of the Confederate uprising, several phone calls to the Coast Guard were made, and Coast Guard vessels assigned to patrolling the American mothball fleet curiously happened to avoid detecting a fleet of frigates and destroyers leaving Corpus Christi unannounced and unscheduled. Even more curiously, a significant number of the Coast Guard's Montana class cruisers went missing or sank in unfortunate accidents shortly thereafter. All of the Coast Guard's heavy cruisers, in fact. Although somewhat outdated compared to modern battleships, the Montana still has a nasty kick to it, a kick the Confederate sailors, many of them Coast Guard crewmen who came with the ships, are more than happy to share with the Allies. Aircraft carrier captains in particular have recently received warnings that any Montana class ship detected is to be handled with extreme caution: the question of battleships versus aircraft carriers may be tipping towards "battleships with convertible surface/air bombardment cannons". It should be noted that for the sake of more damage from the outdated guns (and fun), the Confederates added ample amounts magnesium powder to each of the shells, resulting in a magnificent glow each time the shell explodes. Soldiers being bombarded by multiple cruisers have been often reported to have near death experiences from this glow, more precisely the feeling of time slowing down as the shells rain around them... Behind the Scenes The Montana class is a historical in-joke: traditionally, US battleships were named after American states. At the conclusion of real-world WWII, Montana was the only state in the US that had not had a battleship named after it. That has been rectified in this timeline, with bureaucratic chicanery designating it only as a heavy cruiser. The Montana was a noble attempt by Endless Twilight to write lore for the Cruiser, but contradicted much of the established lore. Twilight then read all the lore, and became very good at writing for Paradox!